What do you do for an encore after you’ve snapped a national wrestling powerhouse’s 7-year state championship winning streak, scoring a record number of points.
“I guess we’ll have to coach a little,” said Poway High wrestling coach John Meyers, chuckling. “We want to make progress inch by inch while hoping to make big strides this year.
“At this time last year, I was very confident. We had a very, very experienced group of guys and not a lot of unknowns. We had maybe one real unknown, but this year we have five or six.
“It’s always fun for me and in a way it’s nice to be different.”
Different, as in starting the season with lots of question marks and lots of talent.
A year ago, Poway scored a record 290½ points to knock Clovis Buchanan off the state throne the Bears had owned for seven straight years.
The Titans sent 10 of their wrestlers into the semifinals round and eventually walked away with three individual titles. Of those, only Angelo Posada, who won at 175 pounds, returns where he will compete at 215.
Posada finished 31-0.
But Arseni Kikiniou (106 last year) and Edwin Sierra (113 a year ago) finished second and will move up to 144 and 120 pounds, respectively. Mario Carini was third at 144 and will compete at 165, Billy Townson finished fifth at 126 (moving up to 132) and R.J. Jones placed sixth at 120 (will compete at 126).
Gone are state champions Elias Navida (132) and Robert Pratt (215) along with runners up Paul Kelly (138) and Laird Root (150), third place finisher Adam Farha (heavyweight) and sixth-placer Aliaksandr Kikiniou (165).
Back and forth, good and bad, plus and minus.
The Titans welcome Mason Carnrite (157 pounds), who placed third in the Oregon state championships, and have veteran varsity wrestlers like Dominic Dotson and Ben Bomberger, both at 190, Tas Storer (132) and Gunnar Neal (152), returning.
Oh, don’t forget Poway had a sensational group of freshmen whom Meyers dubbed the “Fab Frosh” moving up.
They include Arseni Kikiniou, Carini, Matty Orbeto (double All-American at Greco and Freestyle in the Nationals in Fargo, N.D.), Mick Moylan (who is now a heavyweight and was a freestyle All-American), and Diego Valdiviezo, whose brother, junior Carlos, was an All-American Freestyle wrestler this summer.
“Yes, there is a big difference from last year to this, but we also had a record 135 boys at our tryouts,” said Meyers. “For the first time in my career, I had to make cuts (down to 88) because we just didn’t have enough room for everyone to practice. We had more than 30 freshmen us.
“It still comes down to teaching core values, good character, being great in the classroom as well as on the mat and being a good influence on campus. When you have former World Champions and NCAA champions as coaches like we do, there is a lot of instruction going on.”
Meyers fully expects Buchanan to be the main competition.
“I used to scout and follow every move of all the competition, but I’ve learned not to worry about the things over which you have no control,” he said. “We know Buchanan will bring it just like they did last year — and so will we.”
Heading into the second day of the two-day state tournament last winter, the Titans were in second place. But they still had 10 wrestlers.
“Buchanan had 12 or 13 wrestlers, but we started winning and just kept winning. We had all 10 wrestlers advance to the semifinals — I’d never seen anything like that. In my mind, though, Buchanan was still there.
“We met as a team in the hotel that night and I we told the kids ‘Tomorrow is when we break records.’ And we did.”
The Titans are definitely scaling back a little bit this year but will still compete in the Doc Buchanan Tournament in Clovis Jan. 3-4 where they’ll get an early look at Buchanan.
“We’ll lose some matches, for sure, but we need to lose to expose our weaknesses and know what to work on,” Meyers said. “We may not be great now, but the goal is to be great by February (state meet).
“One thing I can tell you for sure — this team is super hungry. That’s what makes it fun.”
